Status: Completed
My prince in shining hockey armor
I
Truth is I was never a romantic type of girl. Sure, I liked receiving flowers every once in awhile and I knew a lot of love songs, but I never pictured myself involved in an epic love tale. I didn’t have high expectations when it came to men or relationships; I barely hoped to find a nice guy that I liked enough to share my life with until time drove us apart.
I wasn’t scarred by bad break ups or abusive relationships, nor had lost faith in love due to my parents. I had grown up surrounded by people madly in love and my first experiences with boys were rather pleasant. I just simply had come to the conclusion that it was impossible to fall so hard for someone that it became harder to breathe without that person. I believed that sort of love was an illusion created by novels and movies.
But life took it upon itself to prove me wrong. A man would unexpectedly walk into my life and change every single idea I had about love and romance.
It all happened while I was working for the Pittsburgh Penguins in their PR department. For me, the job with the hockey champions wasn’t a big deal, I was never a big sports fan and having grown up in San Antonio Texas I barely knew a thing about hockey. But after failing to get my dream job at a record company in LA I had no choice but to take the position an old friend of my dad offered me, public relations for the Penguins.
The transition was easier than expected and I ended up liking my job quite a bit from the start. Everyone was easy going and friendly, even the players. In the beginning I didn’t have much contact with the guys in the roster, but once I was proven to be trust worthy I was assigned to work with them a lot more often. And that is when everything began to get complicated.
It wasn’t exactly love at first sight. If I could’ve chosen which of the guys I wanted to have crush on based on their looks I would have probably gone for Kris or maybe Sid. It wouldn’t have been him, Evgeni Malkin, the goofy Russian with the big nose and adorable dark eyes.
The strictly professional attitude towards most the guys disappeared quickly; soon I wasn’t miss Cooper I was simply Annie, the target of a bunch of their practical jokes. But with him it took longer. I really don’t know the reason for the late bloom of our friendship; I just know that it was after a particularly heartwarming interview I did with him that I realized how much I wanted to get to know him.
It’s safe to say that once an idea is stock in my head I won’t stop until I do something about it. That’s how it was with Geno. I found ways to talk to him and spent more time together, it wasn’t really difficult, I would simply justify myself by saying I wanted to explode all his start potential for a new campaign. The tricky part was when I got him to open up to me.
I’m not sure what I was expecting but I definitely hadn’t imaged what I got. Behind the playful teammate and passionate player laid and incredibly sweet guy, grateful for everything in his life, devoted to his family, and committed to being not just a better hockey player but also a better man.
Needless to say, we became really good friends. It was just incredibly easy to talk to him, despite the broken English and accented voice that I would later come to cherish. I felt like he understood me perfectly and I wanted to think that I did the same for him.
Everything was normal for a while. The only thing that changed, as Geno and I got closer, was the amount of time we would spend with each other. Instead of sporadic conversations in the hallways or after practice we started meeting for coffee or going out to lunch together. Other than that nothing else was different, and nobody really noticed the difference, not even me.
It took a somewhat hard eye-opener for me to see that a lot had actually changed. I may not have wanted to admit it but the truth was that Evgeni Malkin had made his way into my heart.
I wasn’t scarred by bad break ups or abusive relationships, nor had lost faith in love due to my parents. I had grown up surrounded by people madly in love and my first experiences with boys were rather pleasant. I just simply had come to the conclusion that it was impossible to fall so hard for someone that it became harder to breathe without that person. I believed that sort of love was an illusion created by novels and movies.
But life took it upon itself to prove me wrong. A man would unexpectedly walk into my life and change every single idea I had about love and romance.
It all happened while I was working for the Pittsburgh Penguins in their PR department. For me, the job with the hockey champions wasn’t a big deal, I was never a big sports fan and having grown up in San Antonio Texas I barely knew a thing about hockey. But after failing to get my dream job at a record company in LA I had no choice but to take the position an old friend of my dad offered me, public relations for the Penguins.
The transition was easier than expected and I ended up liking my job quite a bit from the start. Everyone was easy going and friendly, even the players. In the beginning I didn’t have much contact with the guys in the roster, but once I was proven to be trust worthy I was assigned to work with them a lot more often. And that is when everything began to get complicated.
It wasn’t exactly love at first sight. If I could’ve chosen which of the guys I wanted to have crush on based on their looks I would have probably gone for Kris or maybe Sid. It wouldn’t have been him, Evgeni Malkin, the goofy Russian with the big nose and adorable dark eyes.
The strictly professional attitude towards most the guys disappeared quickly; soon I wasn’t miss Cooper I was simply Annie, the target of a bunch of their practical jokes. But with him it took longer. I really don’t know the reason for the late bloom of our friendship; I just know that it was after a particularly heartwarming interview I did with him that I realized how much I wanted to get to know him.
It’s safe to say that once an idea is stock in my head I won’t stop until I do something about it. That’s how it was with Geno. I found ways to talk to him and spent more time together, it wasn’t really difficult, I would simply justify myself by saying I wanted to explode all his start potential for a new campaign. The tricky part was when I got him to open up to me.
I’m not sure what I was expecting but I definitely hadn’t imaged what I got. Behind the playful teammate and passionate player laid and incredibly sweet guy, grateful for everything in his life, devoted to his family, and committed to being not just a better hockey player but also a better man.
Needless to say, we became really good friends. It was just incredibly easy to talk to him, despite the broken English and accented voice that I would later come to cherish. I felt like he understood me perfectly and I wanted to think that I did the same for him.
Everything was normal for a while. The only thing that changed, as Geno and I got closer, was the amount of time we would spend with each other. Instead of sporadic conversations in the hallways or after practice we started meeting for coffee or going out to lunch together. Other than that nothing else was different, and nobody really noticed the difference, not even me.
It took a somewhat hard eye-opener for me to see that a lot had actually changed. I may not have wanted to admit it but the truth was that Evgeni Malkin had made his way into my heart.